


Diamonds In The Rough (Make For Smooth Criminals)

by SaintClaire



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crime, Gueulemer is fucking done, Heist, I get to write about shiny things, Kissing, Language, M/M, Montparnasse is a drama queen, Not Exactly a Healthy Relationship, Not crack I promise, Patron-Minette - Freeform, Swearing, everyone is also happy, everyone is dysfunctional, knives?, mass amounts of jewellery, non binary Fauntleroy, people using pet names to fuck with each other, robbers, thieves, uhh don't try this at home I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 14:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20448971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintClaire/pseuds/SaintClaire
Summary: “Don’t tease Montparnasse,” Claquesous cuts in smoothly, his voice hinting richly at his amusement.  “He spent 12 weeks planning this to get stuck in Brujon’s usual spot, any more disappointments and he might implode.”“Fuck you.”“Don’t I always bring you home a present?”“The diamond in your engagement ring is fake,” Montparnasse snarled back through the line.





	Diamonds In The Rough (Make For Smooth Criminals)

**Author's Note:**

> Did a prompt challenge for the line "the diamond in your engagement ring is fake", prompt creation courtesy of Sunfreckle. I added to it later, because I only had ten minutes and it was too good not to take further. Moonfreckle (also Sunfreckle) is also amazing and this work is very much inspired by all of Moonfreckle's Patron-Minette stories, you should definitely go and read them.

“I cannot believe I am stuck watching you fuckers pull off the Bel-Ami heist from a fucking watch point,” he growled. 

His fingers trace over the controls, pulling up the security feeds that Gueulemer’s designed, decidedly not coming to a pause on where Claquesous’ figure is twisting acrobatically through a window.

Fauntleroy’s laugh is delighted over the earpiece, accompanied by the delicate tinkle of a windowpane shattering. “You literally took the guy’s hand off, it’s not like you’re slacking,” they teased. 

Montparnasse snarled wordlessly.

“Don’t tease Montparnasse,” Claquesous cuts in smoothly, his voice hinting richly at his amusement. “He spent 12 weeks planning this to get stuck in Brujon’s usual spot, any more disappointments and he might implode.”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t I always bring you home a present?”

“The diamond in your engagement ring is fake,” Montparnasse snarled back through the line.

Claquesous’ answering laugh is real for the first time tonight, rich with joy and the adrenaline that comes from stealing shiny things.

“Oh darling, that wasn’t my engagement ring” he purred. “My real engagement ring from you was that ruby you lifted in Belize.”

Gueulemer interrupts the blossoming argument flawlessly with a precision shot to the building’s circuitry, and Montparnasse stokes an idle finger over the emerald he’s currently wearing on his left hand. There’s a matching stone embedded in the hilt of Claquesous’ butterfly knife.

Babet’s voice is amused, where it cuts across the line. “If the two of you are quite finished with your foreplay, I could use a time check, Montparnasse.”

He grudgingly tears his eyes from the ring and focuses on the screens in front of him for a minute, cross checking the time on the monitor against his own watch.

“Just under six minutes.”

Babet hisses, his voice sharpening in annoyance. “Fuckers rigged the pressure plate. We’ll be pushing it.”

“Doesn’t matter” Gueulemer huffed. A loud smash echoes across his earpiece, and Montparnasse watches idly as Gueulemer kicks in a supposedly secure door hard enough that the handle puts a hole through the opposing wall. “Just get the alarm to the police sorted, everything else we can handle from here.”

There are more than 24 subsections to the security monitors open in front of him, but Montparnasse’s eye is still drawn to Claquesous as he angles his way through the motion sensors. Claquesous is an artist compared to Gueulemer’s brute force, but the job requires needle-fine precision as well as the ability to smash and grab, so everyone plays their part. 

Everyone that is, except Montparnasse, who is still nursing the stab wound laid neatly between his ribs. 

“Faunt, take the third corridor, go up past the Roman exhibition,” he drawled. His eyes tracked the roving security patrol with a speed his voice belied. “They’re looping up past the Romanian statue, you’ve only got about 15 seconds before they’re in the room with you.”

Fauntleroy didn’t answer, the only sound from them the strained rush of their breathing as they sprinted at incredible pace on soundless feet to get where they needed to be before they got caught. 

Claquesous’ head turned slightly from where he was concentrating on picking the cabinet locks, one by one. “Faunt need a hand, Parnasse?”

He’s silent for a moment, concentrating as his eyes flick from screen to screen, tracing Fauntleroy’s path against the pace of the security guards.

If they manage another 50 meters in the next fifteen seconds, they’ll be in the clear. 

“Montparnasse?” Claquesous voice has taken on a hard edge, and if Montparnasse could be bothered to turn his head, he already knows he’ll see Claquesous rising from the floor, ready to run to Fauntleroy’s aid should things turn ugly. 

“Stick to the plan,” Gueulemer cut in sharply. “Claquesous, hold your position.”

No-one wants to turn this into a shitshow if they don’t have to. They’re just here to steal pretty things, they’re not _animals._

Not here, at least. That’s reserved for the streets.

“Faunt’s out” he murmured, watching Fauntleroy dive headfirst behind a desk seconds before security amble into the room. He’s lost a visual on them, but he calmly watches security sweep the room before exiting, listening to Fauntleroy’s muffled panting.

Babet blew out a noisy breath and Gueulemer swears, whereas Claquesous just goes back to the job he was doing in the first place.

“I’m clear,” Fauntleroy said, slipping out from behind the desk. “I’ll be up to you in a second, Babet.”

Babet grunted but otherwise ignored him, his hands full with instruments designed to take apart a pressure plate without spitting out a screaming alarm. 

Claquesous laughs quietly across the comms, and Montparnasse glanced up to see his partner grinning in the dim black and white of the video feed. 

“Got them open,” he said, already raking the contents of the cases into his bag. “Hold up Babet, I’ll be up there as well in the next four minutes.”

Montparnasse made an approving noise as Claquesous finished up with the first display case, already briskly stripping down the second. 

“See something you like, Parnasse?” he teased. Montparnasse sneered at the screen. “I’m in a generous mood, anything in particular you’d like as a souvenir?”

“There are colour-blind people with better taste in jewellery than you,” he retorted.

Claquesous answering laugh is real for the second time of the night, and Montparnasse ignores the slight flutter in his belly as Claquesous looks incredulously at the security camera for a moment before turning back to what he’s doing. 

“Bull shit there is,” comes the answer. 

“10 years and you still haven’t learnt the difference between carmine and cardinal.”

Babet starts swearing viciously and Claquesous laughs again, Montparnasse turning away to watch whatever it is Babet is fucking up as Fauntleroy finally gets in there. 

They narrowly avoid being stabbed in the chest by a screwdriver as Babet thrusts tools at them without looking, and Montparnasse snickered to himself, carefully noting how far along Babet is.

They’re on track, just. Room to spare, even, if Claquesous finishes up on time. 

“You’re just bitter I pawned that cuff with the amber inlay.”

Of course he was still bitter about that, it was _gorgeous_, and that was without the hours of his time he put into cleaning the piece up. And then the additional hours of time he spent, tracking it back down. He ended up keeping the piece, after first using it to hold onto Claquesous as he fucked him into the mattress, just to prove a point. Unexpectedly repurposed one night when Montparnasse was high and begging for it, Claquesous now enjoyed using it as an anchor to cuff him to the bed, and he’d never mislabelled amber since. 

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll fuck you,” Claquesous said darkly, a hazy tint evident in the words even over his earpiece.

Montparnasse glared at his section of the screen. “As much as I don’t adore your version of public foreplay, you’re on a fucking job, Claquesous.”

“Hence why I switched over to the private fucking comm line, darling.” Claquesous glanced again at the camera, slamming the lids of the glass cases shut and moving onto the final display table. “Anything in particular catching your eye?”

Montparnasse swept his eyes over Claquesous, controlled chaos as he ripped thousands of dollars’ worth of precious stones out of a secure cabinet, throwing them haphazardly in a duffel bag. His hair is just slightly ruffled, no doubt from the run across the neighbouring rooftops to enter through the top floor, and his mask is yanked down low around his throat, the pale expanse of skin glowing faintly in the near-dark of the room.

_Anything in particular catching your eye?_

“Nothing,” Montparnasse lied, eyes still tracing over Claquesous’ body on the screen. “Too dark. I expect first pick when we get back to the rendezvous.”

“You can fight Brujon for it.”

“I’m not fighting Brujon for anything, use your fucking brain and pick me out a present.” he said, grinning now himself. 

“And listen to your bitching if I pick out something that’s not your colour?”

“Oh please,” he said haughtily. “Everything’s my colour, this is _me _we’re talking about.”

“WOULD YOU TWO STOP FUCKING FLIRTING ON A JOB AND OPEN THE FUCKING COMM LINE BACK UP” Gueulemer’s voice suddenly bellows.

Claquesous cackled, throwing the last of the haul in the bag and yanking the zip shut. “I could give you a piercing set with rhinestones then, if that’s how you want to play it.”

“Try it and you won’t fuck me for the rest of your life.” They’re both grinning. Claquesous might have less of a sense of fashion than Montparnasse, but he didn’t propose with anything less than a black diamond on platinum, and he knew god damn well enough not to come near Montparnasse with anything that resembled a rhinestone.

Gueulemer issued a string of increasingly filthy profanities, and snorting with laughter, Montparnasse obliged him and flicked the open channel back on. “’Sous has just finished; he’s packing his shit now. Where do you want him Babet?”

“Up in the south end”. Babet’s voice is strained, muffled from sticking his head into the guts of the hydraulics. “Faunt, can you –“ Fauntleroy slips to the side of him and takes weight off Babet, and he rolls back out on the floor. “Tell Claquesous I need his ass up here to help carry it out. I’m done, but it’ll go easier with three people.”

“He’s crossing back out the motion sensors now.” Montparnasse reported dutifully. “Gueulemer, you’ve got a second set of security guards who’ve just turned off on your block.”

He kept one eye on Gueulemer, and the other on Claquesous, who had started to run, a bag dangling from each shoulder. He’s pulled his mask back up before he left the exhibit, and the lower half of his face is a dramatic snarl of bones.

“Got it!” Babet exclaimed breathlessly. “Faunt, you okay?”

“Just over 60 seconds” Montparnasse said, abandoning the video feed as he watched Claquesous race into the room. “Security’s back up in the Grecian wing. External patrols beginning the move to swap shifts now.”

He waits an extra heartbeat for Gueulemer to get in position, and then deliberately triggers the alarm on the fence against the west wing of the block. The security patrol takes off like well-trained sheep, and their newly arrived replacements scramble in alarm and begin fanning out in readiness. 

His own crew begin to bug out in the opposite direction. Millions of dollars between them, literally carried on their shoulders in Babet and Fauntleroy’s case, and the comm line is dead silent. 

With the smug attitude of a job well done, well-earned when he’s been in charge of the planning for said job, Montparnasse prepared for his own departure.

He waits for them all to leave, Gueulemer literally hauling Babet out the window, waiting until they’ve finally left all the frames visible on the monitors. 

The USB is small, but it does its job effectively, wiping the whole memory bank clean. The servers around him whir unhappily, and he waits until the first hint of smoke hits his nostrils, signifying the equipment beginning to overheat before he leaves, throwing a last look at the wall of blank security screens behind him.

“Montparnasse?”

Claquesous. His partner will never admit it, but he’s still getting over the fright of seeing Montparnasse drop to the ground, hand still holding the knife embedded in his chest. His sigh of relief when Gueulemer benched him for the heist had been well concealed, but Montparnasse had still known what he was looking at. 

He’s still careful with him; in bed, on a job, anywhere. It’s getting old quickly, but well – there’s a reason Montparnasse is working the cameras on this job, and a reason why he’s walking out of the room rather than running. It’s the safest position in the whole place, requiring the least physical expenditure and holding the least risk of being caught.

“Coming out now,” he said quietly. “I’ll meet you at the shop in ten.”

There’s no answer, but he smiles anyway, spinning an old knife around his fingers, before snapping the handle shut. 

Time to go take his pick of pretty things.

…

They’re in bed together later that night, Montparnasse twisting his fingers under the lamp light to admire his new prizes.

Claquesous is less conceited in his delight, but he’s stretched out on his side beside him on the bed, and he’s been content just to watch Montparnasse through hooded eyes for the last half an hour.

He gently plucks Montparnasse’s hand out of the air, pressing kisses over his fingers, both ringed and unadorned, playing with his hand. He idly twisted their hands together, forcing Montparnasse’s wrist to turn in a slow circle, the light glinting off every single stone. 

“Beautiful” he murmured quietly, dropping another kiss to the delicate skin on his inner wrist.

Montparnasse tilted his head up so Claquesous couldn’t see him smile. “I told you, I have excellent taste in jewellery.”

Claquesous snapped his arm out and forced Montparnasse’s hand back awkwardly, causing him to gasp in outrage in order to cover a wince. It’s worth it though, when Claquesous climbs on top of him, still a shade more cautious than he would have been a month ago, but dropping his weight so he’s pinning Montparnasse to the bed by his hips, straddling his waist. 

“You have gaudy taste in jewellery,” he smirked, leaning down to kiss him.

Montparnasse can’t be bothered to find a rebuttal, not when Claquesous is finally willing to touch him properly again, for the first time in weeks. 

They spend awhile like that, exchanging burning kisses between them. Claquesous’ teeth are sharp against his bottom lip, and his nails feel like they’re scraping hot trails up his back. He slips his hand under Claquesous’ shirt and catalogues the way the warm skin reacts to the new rings, running his hands up and down and until the metal of the bands is no longer cold. Claquesous gets his hands in Montparnasse’s hair and wrapped around his wrists, and he’s kissing him in a way that is almost worth more than the haul tonight.

His chest eventually starts screaming for air, and he whimpers internally, not willing to let Claquesous go. But his partner somehow knows instinctually that something’s up, and merely slides down so his mouth is buried in the space between his neck and shoulder, taking the skin gently between his teeth. 

There’s no pressure on his chest, Claquesous is all too hyper aware of the still-healing wound, and simply concentrates on spending several minutes biting a string of marks up the side of his neck, that Montparnasse can’t quite bring himself to complain about at the moment, warm with Claquesous’ weight on top of him. 

The both know he’ll bitch viciously about it in the morning, but right now he’s pliant and easy and Claquesous has a long history of snatching his opportunities wherever he gets them.

“I picked you out a present,” he said, still speaking into the side of Montparnasse’s neck. 

He rolled off him suddenly, and Montparnasse scowled in displeasure at the rush of cold air against his chest as Claquesous crossed over the room to fish something out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He let him climb back on the bed, yanking at his thighs until he gives in and crawls back on top of Montparnasse.

Claquesous held the little black box over his head, laughing at him as he taunted, making Montparnasse try to snatch it out of the air, before dropping it with an indignant yelp as Montparnasse jabbed his fingernails in the crease of skin between the thigh and the groin. 

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Claquesous as he flicked him in the armpit, but didn’t bother to say anything, secretly relieved his partner was seemingly beginning to get over treating Montparnasse like glass. 

He opened his mouth to say something snarky about Claquesous’ terrible taste in jewellery, only to have all of his breath leave in an instant, a single whoosh of an exhale as he flipped the lid of the box up.

Claquesous chuckled, his hands twining around the top of Montparnasse’s thighs. He leant down and kissed the middle of Montparnasse’s sternum, his chin just scraping the edge of the bandage as he lifted his head back up. 

“Thought you might like that one.”

He can’t answer. He’s trapped in his own breathless awe, caught between the heavy warmth of Claquesous and the cold glitter of the blue diamond sitting open in his hand. 

Even in the poor light of their bedside lamp, the facets shoot brilliance into every corner of the room, a ripple of light wavering gently across the lower part of Claquesous face and neck. 

“I didn’t even think the exhibit had one of these,” he eventually croaked.

“Mmm, they didn’t,” Claquesous agreed. “Or at least, they weren’t supposed to. I’d say this one was supposed to go on display next month, and they just took hold of it early.”

Claquesous smoothly plucked the ring out of the box, and Montparnasse instantly began shedding the rings he was already wearing on his left hand, letting them drop without care to the side of him on the bed somewhere.

They were no less beautiful than the newest addition to his jewellery collection, but Claquesous slipped the blue stone onto his ring finger and Montparnasse’s breath caught in his chest again.

“As flawless as that emerald is, I thought you might appreciate this as another engagement ring,” Claquesous smirked. “Between the two of us, we could do them in every colour.”

“I’ll get you a sapphire next. Or an amethyst, maybe. Something in purple.”

Montparnasse had first proposed to Claquesous in a flamboyant, overdramatic performance in order to keep up the con they were running. The white diamond he had used was pretty, but nothing particularly special as opposed to the rest of his personal collection. He’d only been able to buy off the table, acquired on the day at short notice. Claquesous still thought it was hilarious, and wore the diamond when Montparnasse was in a bad mood with him. Claquesous’ real engagement ring - a particularly gorgeous ruby that had given Montparnasse a hell of a time lifting it out of a private collection in a foreign country - he preferred to wear on a chain around his neck.

It was entirely hidden most of the time, invisible and unassuming to anyone but Montparnasse, who knew what fell at the edges of the thin chain. Even in his bitchiest moods, he never took it off. Claquesous wore Montparnasse's ruby around his neck, and he’d repurposed the stones from several of the other pieces he'd gifted him over the years. He would have the gems and precious metals embedded into the hilts of his knives, or occasionally have new blades forged from scratch.

Montparnasse flaunted his engagement rings, and indeed all of his various gifts from Claquesous for all to see. More than once he’d washed blood out of the settings, taking as much care with the jewellery as he took dressing the skin over his knuckles, his partner sneering and scolding from the top of the bathroom sink. Claquesous would later catch his hands and kiss both the ring and his fingers, when he thought Montparnasse was asleep. 

He’d deny it should anyone ever be stupid enough to ask, but there was an additional hidden drawer in the display case of his room, one that he’d conveniently never bothered to tell Claquesous about. He would recognize everything in there, if he ever found it – a piecemeal collection of little treasures ranging from poor to middling value, ugly and decorous in the way that all of Claquesous’ presents had been, before Montparnasse had begun cultivating any semblance of taste in him. 

He should have rightfully thrown it all out years ago, but for reasons he didn’t feel like examining, he couldn’t bear to have them any further away than his true collection, so they lived in drawer more hidden than all of the rest of the hidden drawers, and Claquesous never said a word.

Claquesous thumbed at the ring where it slipped, loose on Montparnasse’s finger. His face didn’t change, but Montparnasse turned his head to sink his teeth into his knuckle, before kissing it.

“Come with me to get it resized in the morning?”

Claquesous nodded, slipping off Montparnasse to lie back down beside him, jerking and swearing as he landed in the little puddle of precious stones Montparnasse had dumped there minutes ago. 

Montparnasse snickered unashamedly, yanking his leg up to avoid being kicked, taking the jewellery back to deposit it on the bedside table. He flicked the light off and curled back towards Claquesous, who was peeling his shirt off beside him. They lay there in silence together, Montparnasse still admiring the diamond where it was picking up the thin light from the moon and the distant streetlights, streaming through the curtains.

Claquesous stretched out properly beside him, one hand possessively draped over Montparnasse’s hip, pulling him towards him. 

Mindful of pulling at the bandage on his chest, he shuffled closer. 

“It’s beautiful” he said softly, now that his face was too low for Claquesous to see. “It’s a gorgeous stone.” He can’t bring himself to say thank you. He doesn’t do thank you’s, he doesn’t do gratitude. Claquesous knows what he means anyway.

The shape of his jaw where it’s resting against the top of Montparnasse’s head changes as he smiles, and his thumb digs in a little deeper on Montparnasse’s hip as he rubs it back and forth. 

“Just shut up.”

Montparnasse has made a life out of scrutinising beautiful things. The words sound deceivingly like, ‘you’re welcome’.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to know if you liked it! You can also come chat to me on [Tumblr](https://radpeacharbiter.tumblr.com) everyone's welcome :)


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